The niche and paratextual industries of games and play

I. Students Maintaining Uni, Work and a Social Life – A Game in the Making

The game that was prototyped in my group works with the concept of students struggling with balancing university, work and relationships while being a student at university or even school. This theme/idea is one that we have all experienced at some point being students and is something that we hope will make it relatable to future players.

Originally, our idea was to create a game called ‘Battle of the HECS‘ which borrowed elements from and was very similar to the game ‘Gameof Life‘. This game design was way too complicated for a very simple game with an almost dull game loop. Battle of the HECS didn’t allow for any kind of strategic thinking as the game loop was restrictive and to simple. So as feedback from our tutor wasn’t what we were expecting we all thought that we could make something that still plays on the themes we highlighted but in another form.

This is where our new idea comes in. Our new game idea is a play on ‘Monopoly Deal‘ and will allow players to interact and be strategic more while playing the mechanics of the game. In our Game (which has yet to be named) you play as a student, and the aim of the game is to keep their university, work and social life balanced throughout the game while completing classes to win. Our new game is in the form of a card game and does not have an accompanying board.

The card deck contains four different cards – action, relaxation, assessment and wildcards which will encourage players to play strategically and even haggle with each other. Encouraging this type of play and communication between players will allow for them to become more involved in the game and hopefully bring out the competitive side of some players.